


Ten Percent for Luck

by UrsulaKohl



Category: Original Work
Genre: Braids, Explosive Ordnance Disposal, F/F, Fraternization, Imperialism, Military Jargon, Military Science Fiction, Quiet Sex, Reckless Endangerment, Religious Conflict, Sad Smart Truck, Too many names, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 08:52:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16014515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UrsulaKohl/pseuds/UrsulaKohl
Summary: The leytenant was good with explosives, and with humans.  Rumor said she'd changed divisions because of political trouble.  Zhanu followed her, because good officers were more important than rumors.  At least, that's what Zhanu was thinking when she applied for the transfer.





	Ten Percent for Luck

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Edo no Hana (Edonohana)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/gifts).



Everyone in the village had a rifle, and they all smiled too much. The aqmada was inside one of the houses, smiling back and drinking tiny glasses of tea. Zhanu Samayovet thought the leytenant should have gone with him. That wasn't right, though. The leytenant should _be_ him: she should be Aqmada Inkar Alyevet, negotiating with the villagers, not Leytenant Alyevet, guarding a truck with Zhanu. 

The bad news had trickled in slowly. Originally, the word was just that Alyevet was changing divisions. Then there were rumors that she'd run into some sort of trouble on leave. (Rumor said House trouble, but the army usually kept away from Houses). Zhanu had thought hard, and left a dozen baursaqi, fried golden and sprinkled with rose syrup, at the green saint's shrine. Then she'd put in for a transfer. Rumors were one thing, but a good officer was another. Right now, though, Zhanu was just watching the smart truck, in case it got bored and started wandering. That gave her too much time to wonder which rumors had been true.

Most of the villagers pretended Zhanu and the leytenant were invisible, but an old woman walked right up to them. She was tall, though bent slightly with age, and her headscarf was embroidered with blue flowers. She carried two pistols at her waist instead of a rifle slung over her back, which looked like the elder's privilege of not giving a fuck. The woman stared down at Zhanu and said, "They didn't let you into the meeting either, huh?"

"Leytenant Alyevet and I are keeping the truck company, xaniet."

"And who are you, dear? The first leytenant?"

Zhanu glanced at Alyevet, worried. The woman shouldn't be talking to her at all. Even if you didn't recognize their insignia, Alyevet was so clearly the superior officer, poised and confident. Except that Zhanu's hair was braided with the divisional red and silver, while the leytenant's head was shaved like a new recruit's. 

Alyevet cupped her hand very slightly, in the signal that meant, "I've got your back." Then she turned on the full force of her smile. Unlike the villagers' smiles, which implied if they stopped feeling pleased they would shoot you, Alyevet's grin was individual and genuine. "Xaniet," she said, "this is Serzhant Aruzhan Samayovet, an expert in explosive ordnance disposal. I am honored to be able to introduce her to you."

Alyevet was the real explosives expert. But that was nice of her to say.

"Well!" the woman answered. "I thought you people were more in the business of selling ordnance than disposing of it."

Alyevet bowed. "Mines kill soldiers, as well as farmers and sheep. And we have found that even safely stored ordnance poses problems. Somehow, when people have explosives, they find ways to use them." 

"I expect you're also good at improvising explosives?"

"The skills are similar, xaniet," Alyevet admitted. "But in my experience, there are enough bombs around without our making new ones."

"If I told you where to find a cave full of ammunition, what would you do? Take it and keep it somewhere less tempting?"

"Xaniet, we would blow it up," Alyevet answered. "And destroy the cave entrance, to protect any wandering children, or goats." Unless the cave was conveniently located near a major highway under the army's control. But there weren't a lot of those, around here.

"Find a map, dear," the woman told Zhanu.

At a nod from Alyevet, Zhanu went around the far side of the truck to retrieve her slate. The door opened to her knock. Meanwhile, Alyevet was making polite noises about young people's irrational fears as a prelude to asking, "How would I know Vaixeti snipers wouldn't be waiting, on the way to such a cache?"

"I will tell my nephew not to send them!" the woman said, almost laughing. "But it doesn't matter if you believe me. Your commander will risk you, either way."

That was the formal reminder that the villagers weren't on the army's side, except when the army was useful to them. Zhanu felt sorry for this woman's nephew. "Here is the map, xaniet, sir," she said, so the leytenant wouldn't have to answer nicely. She held her slate where the others could see it and pulled up a tourist map. It didn't have the resolution of the military charts, and some of the listed towns weren't there any more, but the mountains were still in the right places.

Alyevet caught Zhanu's eye for a moment. She seemed approving. Then the leytenant and the village woman descended into a long, technical discussion involving streams, trails, high pastures, and the exact location of an artificial cave in the nearest mountain. The other villagers continued to stay away.

As the mapping conversation ended, Alyevet asked, "Xaniet, what do you gain from telling us this?" 

"Would you believe I dream of prosperity and peace between our peoples?" the woman asked, still smiling. "An accord the friends of God would bless?"

"I would not contradict the wisdom of my elders, xaniet," the leytenant answered. Zhanu admired her ability to say so without apparent sarcasm. Alyevet had always been good at village politics, though. She remembered all the tiny, patchworked understandings that brought a unit vegetables and notice of springtime attacks.

"Your courtesy exceeds my nephew's!" said the woman. "He should have invited me to tea with your commander."

* * *

  
Flyers couldn't land near the cave: the slope was too steep and the wind was too high. There wasn't enough of a road for trucks, either, not even smart ones. That gave Zhanu the whole five-hour hike up the mountain to wonder if the woman had been telling the truth, and if she should be here at all. 

The squad of four moved in single file. Zhanu was at the rear, as was right and proper for a serzhant. The two men in front of her were taller, but not so used to the altitude. Zhanu kept pace with them easily. Gulasov coughed sometimes (he'd picked up a bug in transit, as likely as not). Rayanev kept starting to whistle, and then realizing that was a bad idea. Zhanu would have to speak to him about the whistling. As the sun rose higher, she realized she'd have to mention his ribbons, too. The divisional silver and red braided into his queue was shiny new, too bright to look like flowers and too orange to be a bird. Zhanu had dipped her ribbons in tea, first thing after the transfer; Gulasov had flown in from another base, and his ribbons had the frayed ends of long use. Of course Alyevet didn't have a braid, and Zhanu didn't know why.

But here Zhanu was, catching glimpses of Alyevet at the front of the line. The leytenant was carrying a rifle and a bulky pack, like all the rest of them, and her mottled green coat hung loose. But she strode up the mountain as if it was a meadow. Zhanu imagined her watching the path ahead, winged brows just slightly drawn together. Alyevet had beautiful ears, with the defined, almost pointed lobe that would show a pair of earrings to perfection. And that sort of thought, right there, was why everyone else assumed Zhanu had transferred divisions. All the stories pointed one way: the general and his boon companion, the xatun and her sworn sister . . . But Zhanu had served under Alyevet for three good years. If anything was going to happen between them, it would have started ages ago. What mattered was that Alyevet could talk to people, and knew things about rocks.

The cave was more or less where the village woman had claimed. At first it looked just like an opening where rock had washed out, under a rivulet. But there was a crack they could thread a wire through, with a camera and a light. That showed a corridor, about the height and width of a person, with stacks of boxes down the right-hand edge. The cross section looked like one bubble on top of another, which meant the tunnel had been cut in haste with a couple of borer drones. The boxes would be full of explosives. Zhanu chiseled the hole wider, until they could tilt the disc drone from Gulasov's pack sideways and send it in to make a map. Meanwhile, Rayanev moved about downslope, setting grav sensors to gauge how far the system extended. The sensors were finicky. Rayanev had to dig each one a little way into the earth, and then walk away a couple meters so as not to skew the readings. Zhanu's old team had joked that one interfering family of marmots could wreck an entire squad.

Alyevet had her slate out, and was sketching where to set the charges. They needed to destroy as much of the weapons cache as they could, and collapse enough of the tunnel system to prevent the Vaixeti from retrieving the rest. She worked quickly and calmly, integrating the data from Rayanev and the drone as it came in. Zhanu kept an eye on her watch. They needed to get back down the mountain and call for a flyer before the sun set.

Finally Alyevet flipped the slate around, and Zhanu started checking her work. The big question was how far down the mountain to stand, to avoid being hit by flying debris. On flat ground, and if you knew the all-up weight of the explosives you were working with, the equation was simple. Here, which mountain you were on mattered, since tunnels in some rock would collapse and others just focused the explosions. And the weight was always a bit of an estimate.

"I'll send the trigger command," Alyevet said. That would put her closest to the blast.

Zhanu nodded, still checking. The leytenant was reliable, but procedures were procedures. And indeed, the placements all made sense. Rayanev's measurements said they had to place one charge out and to the side, to collapse a tunnel spur, but everything else seemed standard. Except—"You didn't add ten percent, sir." They always stood back a little further than the computations required, just in case.

Alyevet said, "That is correct, serzhant." Zhanu made the change. Then they were all in motion, retrieving sensors, setting charges, stuffing gear back into packs for the long hike down.

It wasn't until they had watched the hillside shudder in on itself, till a rock the size of Zhanu's two fists had bounced and settled a meter away, that Zhanu registered the leytenant's tone. She hadn't meant, "Fix it." She'd meant, "You're right."

* * *

  
The next evening, after supper, Zhanu went to the leytenant's office. Alyevet controlled half of a round, temporary building. The sides were canvas, but the door was set into a solid wood frame. Zhanu knocked, and waited. Eventually, the leytenant shouted, "Come in!"

Equipment was stacked close to the office walls: pressure plates, grav sensors, vibration sensors, boxes of ammunition. Alyevet's shoes were set next to the doorway. The main light came from a portable lantern on her desk. The white glow of her slate illuminated her face and glinted off the residue of gold polish on her nails. "I want you to know," Alyevet said, "you can leave at any time."

Zhanu was nonplussed. If the leytenant didn't want her there, she wouldn't have let her in. "Sir. I wanted to ask you—"

"You followed me. You changed divisions." The leytenant stood, and set both hands on Zhanu's shoulders. 

Zhanu looked up, into her odd, black-ringed eyes. When the leytenant kissed her, it felt both inevitable and unreal. They both started out trying to kiss slowly, thoughtfully. But they shifted almost immediately into quick, hungry kissing, biting each other's lips.

"Do you want this?" the leytenant asked, pulling away for a breath.

"Sir, I never believed _you_ would want—"

Alyevet traced the bones of Zhanu's face with lightly curled fingers. Around her eyes, her cheeks. "You are allowed to ask for things for yourself."

But Zhanu wasn't just some sort of token cast onto a map. She wanted things in relation to other people. What she wanted now was to know what the leytenant was doing. If Alyevet had a plan at all, or if she was just spinning, striking the edges of the world harder and harder, until something felt like enough. 

When Zhanu asked the question like that, the answer seemed obvious. Zhanu couldn't steady the leytenant on her own. You never could make that choice for other people. But she didn't want to walk away, either. "I do want you, here, with me. Sir."

The leytenant kissed Zhanu's forehead, and beside her eye. "You know," she said, "I'm Nazhka, to my friends." That sarcastic grin meant, maybe, "if I have any left."

Zhanu tried it, in her head: Nazhka Alyevet and Zhanu Samayovet, in an office, fraternizing. Kissing. But the diminutive felt wrong, too childish for the woman she'd known mostly as Aqmada Inkar Alyevet. Could she think just the first name? Inkar? "Inkar," she said, aloud this time, touching the slightly spiky fuzz of hair at the nape of the leytenant's neck.

In response, Inkar unsnapped Zhanu's coat, pushing it open. In the process, her hand brushed Zhanu's breast. Zhanu sucked in her breath, trying to stay quiet. Nobody was working in the other half of the office, not this time of night, but the walls were still canvas. Inkar tugged up Zhanu's tunic and untwisted the clasp at the front of her bra. Zhanu sighed, softly. The leytenant's fingers were a little bit cold, and it was so easy to focus on them touching her breast. Hands cupped, thumb circling. 

But it wasn't fair, just to feel. Zhanu pulled at Inkar's coat. The leytenant took it off, folded it, then crossed her arms and pulled her tunic over her head in one smooth motion. Her breasts were bare, pointed, her nipples large. Zhanu wanted to trace them with her tongue, to nibble. But instead, Inkar reached for Zhanu's belt, unhooked it, and slipped her hand inside Zhanu's pants. Her finger brushed Zhanu's clit, but it was too much, too bright. Zhanu was glad when it slipped inside her, instead. She rested her head on Inkar's shoulder and felt herself held, the pressure of the heel of Inkar's hand, her fingers moving. Zhanu shut her eyes and tried not to squeak, not to breathe. She let the tension of her fingers on Inkar's bare skin say yes, now, more. Then she was warm and sleepy, all at once, and smiling.

Zhanu drew back very slightly and looked for the coats. Inkar's was folded neatly on the desk. There was just enough clear floor space to lay it out, like a blanket. Zhanu found her own coat and rolled it loosely, then draped the leytenant's tunic over, to form a makeshift pillow. She thought she'd lay Inkar down, take off her trousers, and kiss down along her body. But instead she found herself lying on her back, Inkar's knee between her legs, teeth biting her neck. Zhanu pushed against Inkar's knee, against the hands stroking her breasts. It wasn't right just to accept, to feel. But it was so easy to go where the leytenant sent her, to be hers in all the small motions of her body. This time, when Inkar touched Zhanu's clit, she wanted to bask in the brightness, to stretch that moment out forever.

Inkar's hand was still resting inside Zhanu's pants, comfortable and warm, a little later. "What was it you wanted to ask me, earlier?"

Zhanu couldn't ask about safety margins for explosives, not here. Instead she said, "Why are we doing this now?" 

Inkar laughed, the sort of startled, overwhelming laugh that comes when things are falling apart. "Because I fucked up. They told us, in training, that if we were any good at all, some of our people would want us. That it wasn't truly personal, and wouldn't last. I knew you liked me, but—I didn't think it mattered. And now it does."

Leytenant logic wasn't, as the saying went. Seemed like that still held true, the second time around? Zhanu wrapped her arms around Inkar and held her tight for a good, long minute. Then she rolled them sideways and pulled away a bit, starting to sit up.

"You're not leaving?" Inkar asked, voice small.

"I want to take my boots off!" Zhanu fumbled at the laces and tugged off her boots by the heels. Then she kneeled and removed Inkar's trousers. The leytenant's hips were narrow. It was easy to undress her, easy to keep her warm with lips and mouth. Inkar took to the silence naturally, it seemed. It was just the slowness of her hips, the relaxation of her hand on Zhanu's braid, that said when she was done. 

Zhanu stretched her body out against the leytenant's, feeling the roughness of her own tunic, and tasting sweet and salt together. After a while, she asked, "How did you come to join the army?" That was the sort of question you asked when you were on leave in the city with someone. Several toasts into the evening. It felt strange to ask it sober. But it also felt strange not to know.

"I was in Otter House," said Inkar.

"Otter, like rivers? Canals?" Were the rumors about House trouble true, then?

"Yes, rivers, canals, roads. My auntie showed me how to blast out a mountain pass, using firecrackers in the sandbox. We were that kind of family."

"But why the military?" Because it sounded like Inkar wasn't just vaguely associated with Otter House. Her parents might have had actual shares. People with that sort of income didn't join up, usually, not even with a paid commission.

"Because I wanted to build something." Inkar ran her hands down Zhanu's braid. Her hand settled in the small of Zhanu's back, where her tunic was pushed up.

"Don't Houses build things?"

"For themselves. So they can take the tolls. The army, we protect everyone. It doesn't matter who you are, or if you know both parents' names."

That was a House-brat way to think. They were the ones who cared about lineages, shares, and legal ceremonies. Or didn't care, in the leytenant's case. "So we're building big holes in the sides of mountains."

"Only the best!" Inkar pulled on Zhanu's hair, gently, as she wove her fingers through the ribbon at the end of the braid. 

Zhanu was ready to stop talking. She lifted her head.

* * *

  
Eight days later, the squad was riding a smart truck at the head of a tiny convoy. The road was mostly ruts and dried-out stream bed, but the truck was smart enough to find a path. That meant the four soldiers could brace themselves against the jolts, and watch the hillsides. These hills had lots of towers, old ones, made of light stone with gray slate roofs. Whoever was here first had money, to program the cutters to fit all that stone. The people here now had sheep. Zhanu watched for motion, or shining metal. She ended up aiming at a lot of white fleece.

One of those towers was up ahead, a big square one. There were sheep in the road, too, including a ram with big curling horns. "Sir—" Zhanu said.

Inkar was already on the radio, yelling at the other trucks to pause, keep distance, go around. Zhanu looked for people in the tower. That meant she didn't see whatever bit of debris the truck crunched over. She felt the shaking, though, the rattle through all of her bones as the explosion hit. Somewhere a sheep baaed, like a person shouting.

"Damage exceeds self-repair tolerance," the truck said plaintively. "Manual repair required." Meanwhile there was a series of pops from the towers. Definitely people with rifles there, shooting from the old arched windows. The louder crunch was a grenade.

"Go, go, go!" Inkar yelled. "This is the kill zone!" Gulasov and Rayanev were already out the downhill doors and scrambling down the hillside. But Inkar wasn't leaving. She had a hatch up and was rummaging for the repair kit. She was going to lie under the truck and patch it herself.

"Sir. Someone has to cover you."

"Eight fucking hells. Serzhant." The leytenant had the kit now, though. She rolled out Gulasov's door and under the truck.

Zhanu crouched in the cab and watched the tower. The other trucks had pulled away. The sheep were gone, or dead. There was just the slow occasional crack, and then silence. The ambush was just a few village people, maybe. A few village people with a lot of explosives. Maybe the leytenant would have been all right, on her own?

There was a blur on the left, a smudge in the grasses on the hillside. It shifted right, coming closer. Zhanu fired. Either she'd frozen it in place, or she'd missed. 

Zhanu heard a pop and a crack, as something hit plastic behind her. The grass shivered. That was very close range.

Zhanu yelled, "Stealther, incoming!" and set her rifle aside. She drew her pistol, laying down fire. Under the truck, the leytenant would have a knife. A few meters away, the blur paused. Then the grasses seemed to rip apart, and Zhanu saw a shirt, blood.

"Manual repair complete," the truck reported. 

The leytenant climbed back into the cab. The door slammed. "We need the body. Grab it, let's go."

If anyone was still in the tower—But it was quiet now. Zhanu cracked open an uphill door, dropped out, and groped for the body's ankles. Genuinely a dead weight. But it paid to have a low center of mass, sometimes. She shoved the body back up into the cab, with the leytenant pulling. The truck was already grinding into motion again.

Zhanu climbed up and settled back into position, holding her rifle. The leytenant had a knife out. She stripped off the attacker's blurry coat, his mask. He'd covered his hair; of course, he wasn't proper military. He had the scraggly beginnings of a beard.

Zhanu started to ask, "Are there any—"

"I didn't give you permission to speak."

The body, naturally, was also silent.

It took three hours to reach the next base. They worked through all the check-offs and reporting. Somebody took away the body. They stowed their gear. Then Alyevet said, "Serzhant, follow me." Zhanu went after her, three steps behind. The leytenant hadn't been issued an office, yet. Instead, they found the exercise track, and stood at the center of the oval. Dusk was just starting to fall. The gray rocks shone a little in the fading light.

The leytenant set her hands on Zhanu's shoulders again, gripping hard this time. She didn't quite shake her. "You disobeyed my direct order."

"You would have died there, and sent the truck on without you."

"He almost shot you, serzhant."

"I'm protecting you. Sir." Even if that wasn't what the leytenant wanted. If it was the complete opposite.

The leytenant shook her head, too quickly. She should have had a braid, weighting her down.

"Sir, what are you doing?"

The leytenant unzipped one of her coat pockets and pulled out a silver disk. "The enemy had this, on his hat."

"Is it related to that village, somehow?"

"No. Look at it."

Zhanu took the jewelry. It had a pin back, and a design in relief. She tilted it, trying to catch the light. "This looks like one of the charms they sell for the green saint. But I don't see vines."

"It's for Navyai. One of the friends of God." The leytenant's voice was tight.

Zhanu waited. City people didn't care about the friends of God, usually. But all the mountain villagers did. Every soldier knew not to touch their shrines. This didn't explain why the leytenant was angry, or had almost gotten herself killed.

"We're too far south," the leytenant said. "You shouldn't have the cult of Navyai here. Unless something happened."

"Did something happen? Sir?"

"They're building a road." Uninflected, furious.

"Who is, sir?" But there was only one answer that made sense. The leytenant's family. Otter House.

"I was home on leave when the proposal came out. I looked at the map. They're going to start with one of the pilgrimage routes and just level it out, cut straight through the mountain. Delete her shrine. We're going to lose thirty years of relationship-building." Some of which was Alyevet's. All those careful, smiling conversations in all those little tiny villages. 

"You told your family what the army would think?"

"My family was bidding on _a military fucking contract._ "

Politics. Houses and politics. And a general, somewhere, who wanted more people to kill. "What did you do?"

"I painted my nails and I covered my hair and I went to the shareholders' meeting. I warned them our crews would be taken out by religious zealots."

Alyevet was a good officer. She had been before that, probably, a favored daughter of her House. She expected people to welcome and approve her. "They didn't listen?" 

"They asked the army for a hazard bonus."

Zhanu reached out and touched the leytenant's arm. She didn't react in any obvious way, but she didn't push Zhanu away, either.

"Then I got an invitation to tea with the polkovniki. He told me soldiers don't hide their braids, and if I wanted to vote House shares, I could resign my commission."

"And you told him you wouldn't?"

"I told him I didn't have a family." 

_Oh, Inkar._ Zhanu's hand tightened. The leytenant must have sounded just that certain when she was talking to the polkovniki. It was one of the basic skills of command, sounding like you believed exactly what you were saying. But you couldn't shift your superior officers just by being sure. Inkar should have known that. She knew how to nod, and half-agree, and maneuver people slowly. But maybe she hadn't believed she should need that skill, with someone who ought to be on her side already?

"The polkovniki told me I had a problem with listening. That perhaps I'd focus better with a change of scene."

If she'd been talking to another serzhant, Zhanu would have cursed the pigheadedness of commissioned officers, and offered to buy the next round. The leytenant wasn't ready to joke about wrongs done to her yet, though. She was only just barely talking at all. "So here we are?" Zhanu asked.

"So here we are."

"Do you know, sir," Zhanu said, "lots of people aren't army or House. You could resign this commission, and go to the city. Do something different. Teach geology, maybe."

"You wouldn't be there."

"I could follow you, sir." It was getting dark. The track lights had motion sensors. They'd start glowing if either Inkar or Zhanu moved. But right now they were both still.

Inkar reached for Zhanu's right hand, and took the pin from her. "Or I could stay here, and build things. I know how to do that. Shrines and all."

"You might need to be higher ranked than a leytenant." Which would entail staying alive long enough to get promoted.

"You might need to listen better than I do!" There was part of a laugh in the leytenant's voice, now. 

Inkar shifted toward Zhanu. Their shoulders touched. The lights snapped on. But Zhanu could wait. She could move slowly. She could hold Inkar, as night fell, in a temporary oval of darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> I am indebted to Vandy Hall for showing me the images of mountains and towers that inspired her art, and to Anna Politkovskaya, David Kilcullen, and all the contributors to the US Army War College publication _Long Hard Road_ for their writing about mountain wars. Thank you to Carpenter, Etothey, Kareina, and Venndaai for reading patiently and insightfully, and encouraging me to put the feelings on the page.


End file.
